Draco and Dean: an Unlikely Friendship
by enjolrashid
Summary: This story takes place in the middle of the 5th book, and for the sake of suspension of disbelief, please excuse the aspects of it that conflict with the canon plot (there are many). It is written in a style similar to a play, so the narration may seem a little choppy, but this is because I want to focus primarily on the dialogue.


p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt; text-align: center;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: bold; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dean and Draco, a Hogwarts Love Story/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Monday/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dean Thomas hadn't meant to fight Draco Malfoy, he really hadn't. But he could only take so much. He ignored it, usually, when Malfoy called him a mudblood. /spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Mudblood/spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;". The word made his actual blood boil, and last night it had boiled over at exactly the wrong moment./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Draco Malfoy /spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"had/spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" intended to fight Dean Thomas. However, he hadn't intended to get caught./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Thomas! Malfoy! You know full well there's no fighting allowed in this school!" Professor Flitwick was so short that neither of the boys had seen him coming. Before they could raise a finger, both had been assigned two months of detention every Monday and Thursday./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"So now, the two were sitting on the bench outside of Flitwick's office, a good distance away from each other, waiting for the diminutive professor to usher them in./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Come in, boys, come in! I'm trying something rather special with you two: I do hope it works."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Warily, the boys sat down at a small table across from each other. The professor placed a silver gizmo between them that looked like a cross between an old clock and a barometer, muttering incantations as he did so./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Professor, what are we going to be doing? What is this thing?" asked Dean./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""/spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"This/spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" is an 'amistacium'. It is designed to make enemies friends."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Draco sneered, "Like I'll ever be friends with /spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"him/spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Shut up, Malfoy!"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Now, boys, /spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"listen/spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;". The way this gadget works is it asks you questions and forces you to answer them honestly. The questions will start out easy and get progressively more intimate. Each day when you come in to detention you will sit down at this table and you will find that you are unable to stand up until you've each answered four questions thoroughly and honestly. That's all I ask of you two: talk to each other! You may find each other more interesting than you'd thought."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Will /spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"you/spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" be watching us the whole time?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""No, I won't watch anything. Everything you say will only be between the two of you. Understood?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Yes professor," they both groaned./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I'll leave you to it, then."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"After the professor left, Dean and Draco sat sullenly across from each other. Neither spoke. /span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: bold; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"What is your favorite color? /spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"the gizmo asked in a cold, computer-like voice./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"After a pause, Draco said "Green," and continued glaring at the floor, arms folded./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Me too," said Dean, "I don't see why Slytherin should have a monopoly on the color."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: bold; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"What type of music do you listen to?/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"This time Dean answered first. "Hip hop."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""What, muggle music?" Draco asked disdainfully./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Yes. Problem with that?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Draco smirked but said nothing. /span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""How about you?" Dean asked, letting it slide./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Uh, just normal popular stuff."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Like what?" Dean wasn't really sure what kind of music wizards considered to be 'popular'./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I think muggles call it 'metal'?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Oh."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Silence./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: bold; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Which of your hobbies are you most embarrassed about?/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Neither answered./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"After a pause, Dean said, "It's your turn to go first."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Draco examined his nails carefully. "Dancing," he said at long last, not looking up./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""You like /spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"dancing/spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""You have a problem with that?" Draco snapped./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Uh, no. Of course not."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""So what's yours?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Um, I read muggle newspapers. I get /spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"The Guardian/spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" and /spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"The London Times/spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" every week by owl."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Draco didn't recognize either of those names, but he nodded knowingly as if he did./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: bold; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"What are you most afraid of?/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Well. Death," said Dean after several seconds. "What else is there?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Draco didn't respond./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Draco? What do you fear most?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I'm thinking." Draco kept his eyes on the floor for a moment and then looked up at Dean. "Okay, I fear not being taken seriously."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Not being taken seriously?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Every man wants fame and fortune, right? I fear mediocrity. You know, not being as successful as my parents, or the Dark Lord, or...I don't know..."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""...Harry Potter?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Draco looked shaken. Dean guessed that he was right, so he pressed the question further. "Are you jealous of Harry Potter?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Draco tried to answer, "I'd never be jealous of that son of a mudblood!" but the words would not form themselves in his mouth. He assumed they must not be truthful. "I...I guess I am," he said instead, bowing his head. He tried to say, "a little" but what came out was "a lot."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Appalled at himself, he examined his nails further, expecting Dean to make fun of him. "Well?" he asked after a while, "Aren't you going to call me a coward? You Gryffindors /spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"do /spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"know how to feel superior!"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dean looked at Draco. He had a handsome face if you really looked at it. "No," he said, "I don't think you're a coward. I think it's natural to be jealous of someone famous like that."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Draco, furious with himself for revealing so much, was appalled by the fact that a tear was welling up behind his eyeballs. He made a big show about pretending that he had something caught in his eye./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""You don't have to be better than Harry Potter to be good enough, you know." Dean was surprised at himself that he seemed to be giving /spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Draco Malfoy/spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" encouragement, but it seemed like the right thing to do./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Well, thanks."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; text-align: center; margin: 0pt -36pt 0pt -36pt;"strong id="docs-internal-guid-55fe4f1e-8e18-51f8-9a08-54aa59076c50" style="font-weight: normal;"br /br /strong/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Thursday/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: bold; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Who was your first crush?/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""My turn to go first?" Draco asked, wishing he were somewhere else./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Yes." said Dean, who had to admit that he really wanted to know Draco's answer./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Well, I might as well get it over with. /spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Viktor Krum."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Seriously?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""/spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Yes/spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;". Go ahead, make fun of me, I fancied a boy..."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""No, I mean, that's not the issue...I just I guess I thought that you and Pansy Parkinson were a thing."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""It's complicated. Okay, how about you?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Um, Hermione Granger."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Draco bore a distinct grudge against Hermione Granger, and so out of habit he scoffed and began making a snide remark about her buckteeth, but something inside him made him stop himself mid-scoff. He tried to make it look as if he were only coughing./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: bold; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Where do you most want to travel to?/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Hmm, that's difficult," said Dean, "I've always wanted to take a boat down the Amazon."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Why?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I want to see it before the muggles chop it all down. Where do you want to go?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Morocco."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Morocco?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""It's only the location of the oldest wizarding city in the world. You're telling me you've never heard of Atlantis?" Draco smirked./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Well, yeah, but I thought it was an island that sank thousands of year ago."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""It /spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"was/spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;", long ago, but when it sank the wizards moved to present-day Morocco."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""How come muggles never go near it?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Enchantments, duh."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dean thought he would love to see Atlantis: he loved wizard culture, though he had an affinity for muggle culture that most other muggle-borns did not share. Draco thought he wouldn't mind seeing the Amazon, and he'd like to see some of the wizarding communities from the Americas./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: bold; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"How is your relationship with your parents?/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"The two fell silent. /spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Talk about intimate/spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;", Draco thought, examining his nails again. "My parents," he said finally, "adore me. But..." he trailed off./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""But what?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""But...I don't know if I want to live up to their expectations, that's all."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""You seem to be doing a pretty good job of it right now."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""You think so?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""You're an arrogant, bigoted, narrow-minded Slytherin: a spitting image of the man who raised you."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""You're...you're right. I try to be like my father in so many ways, doing well in school, hanging out with the right sort of people,-/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""-purebloods."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Yeah. Purebloods." /span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Draco felt a sudden need for an excuse. "You have to understand that that's how I've been brought up. I've told you, my greatest fear is being a disappointment, especially to my parents."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Well...you can't let fear of disappointing your parents stop you from doing the right thing. Though, who am I to talk? I haven't had parents since I was accepted to Hogwarts."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""How did they..."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Oh, they didn't die," said Dean bitterly, "They just stopped wanting anything to do with me. They gave me a choice: don't go to Hogwarts or don't come home. I chose Hogwarts. I haven't seen them ever since."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Draco was confused. He had imagined that any parent would be thrilled and honored to find that their child was a wizard. "Why didn't they want you to go to Hogwarts?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""It may be hard for a fine upstanding /spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"pureblood/spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" like yourself to understand, but some muggles feel the same way about wizards as you feel about them. I don't like to defend my parents for what they did, but I understand why they did it. How would /spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"you/spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" like to wake up one day and find that this secret, powerful society was controlling your world?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I'm not a muggle, so I wouldn't know."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Well /spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"I/spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" might have been." Dean, who had been looking at the floor as he spoke, or the table, or the wall, or really anything but Draco's face, finally looked Draco head on. "You have no idea how close I came to forfeiting my acceptance to Hogwarts in order to be with my parents. I could have grown up to be Dean Thomas The Muggle, Dean Thomas The Accountant, Dean Thomas The Dentist, but in the end I chose to be Dean Thomas The Wizard. It cost me the two people I loved most in the world."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""You made the right choice."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""You sound so certain. I'm not that certain. Is it the right choice to belong to a community where wizards like you say I'll never be good enough just because of my blood?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I never...I never thought..."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Never thought that I might have actually been conflicted about whether I wanted to be a wizard? Never thought I had feelings?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Pause./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I'm sorry."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Neither spoke. This, Dean realized, would mark the first time Draco Malfoy had ever apologized to him./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: bold; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Do you believe that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has returned?/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"This was a simple question for Dean. "Absolutely, I do," he said, "I know Harry. He wouldn't lie about it."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"For Draco, the answer was more complicated. He knew the Dark Lord had returned, but he had not before been forward about it to anyone outside of Slytherin house. Of all the things he'd told Dean, the secret he was about to reveal to him was the most dangerous. "I don't need Harry Potter to tell me the Dark Lord's returned," said Draco darkly, "I've seen him with my own eyes."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dean looked at Draco, his suspicions confirmed. "Will you join him? You-Know-Who?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Draco looked down. "My parents want me to."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""But do /spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"you/spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" want to?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I...I don't know."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Pause./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Would you kill me?" asked Dean./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""/spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"What?/spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Would you kill me? If You-Know-Who told you to, would you do it? I'm only a filthy mudblood, after all..."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""You're...you're not...I don't know...it would depend on the circumstances..."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""If I was in your way...if I was fighting on Dumbledore's side...would you?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Draco sat still for a minute. "Yes."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Well, I'm glad we have that cleared up," said Dean, and he got up out of his chair and walked out of the classroom./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; text-align: center; margin: 0pt -36pt 0pt -36pt;"strong style="font-weight: normal;"br /br /strong/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Saturday/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Draco was eating breakfast in the Great Hall with his friends from Slytherin. He watched Crabbe shovel eggs into his mouth so fast that some of them dribbled out the side and onto his chin. He grimaced as Goyle heaped great dollops of mayonnaise onto his potatoes. Pansy Parkinson buttered a piece of toast and attempted to feed it to Draco, smoothing out his hair as she did so. He brushed her hand aside, thinking that the person he'd really prefer to eat with was Dean./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""What's the matter, Draco? Don't you like me anymore?" Pansy teased, eating the toast herself. /span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Of course I do," said Draco, but he didn't look at her when he said it. He was gazing across the hall at the Gryffindor table./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Across the hall, Dean and Seamus were levitating their breakfast sausages and enacting a fake swordfight between them. Seamus' sausage finally defeated Dean's, and Seamus sent it falling to the ground with a flick of his wand./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Not fair! Yours is bigger than mine!" Dean protested./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Ah, you know I can't help it if my sausage is bigger than yours..." Seamus teased, then laughed heartily at his own joke./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dean humoured Seamus and laughed along, but inwardly he wished he could be having a slightly more refined conversation, like the ones he'd had with Draco./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; text-align: center; margin: 0pt -36pt 0pt -36pt;"strong style="font-weight: normal;" /strong/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Monday/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: bold; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"If you could have any job in the world, what would it be?/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Let me see..." said Dean thoughtfully. "I'd be an astronaut."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""What the hell is that?" asked Draco./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Someone who flies into outer space in a rocket ship to do research."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""A muggle?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""/spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Yes/spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""But...would you give up magic to do that? I mean, what's so great about flying into outer space?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I'd get to see the Earth from above. We're a really tiny planet, in the big scheme of things, and I want to explore the universe beyond us. Does that make any sense?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""No, it doesn't. The world is huge and here for us to enjoy. I know muggles have been to space, but wizards like to keep our feet on the ground."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Except in quidditch."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Except in quidditch."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""What would /spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"your/spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" job be?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Minister of Magic."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""No offense, but I don't think I'd vote for you."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""You don't know what I would do. I could promote things you agree with."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Like what?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I don't know, asternets?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""/spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Astronauts/spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"They both laughed./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: bold; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"What do you think of Professor Umbridge?/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Let's see, uh...Umbridge..." said Draco, "...well, she favors me, that's for sure...horrible teacher, though. Most boring class I've ever taken, next to Binns'."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I think she's vile," said Dean, recalling Dumbledore's Army, Harry Potter's plan to teach them something real about Defense Against the Dark Arts. "I'm only glad I'm learning some actual Defense Against the Dark arts with Harry-" he stopped suddenly, horrified with himself for revealing the presence of their secret organization./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""What?" asked Draco./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Nothing. I'm not allowed to say."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I won't tell anyone."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Yeah right."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I'm serious! You know I can't lie in this room!"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Well...I guess...okay, so since You-Know-Who's back, we figured we needed to learn how to defend ourselves. So Harry's teaching us spells and stuff that he's learned while fighting You-Know-Who. That's all, but since Umbridge banned clubs we have to hush it all up."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Oh." A thought occurred to Draco. "Can I ask you the question you asked me last time?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""What is it?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Would you kill me? If I were fighting on the side of the Dark Lord, if I were standing between you and him and the only way to kill him was to destroy me, would you do it?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I think I'd probably stun or freeze you."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""If that didn't work?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Then...of course I would. I mean, You-Know-Who has killed so many people-I'd kill you if it meant killing him. But I really hope it doesn't come to that."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""It...it might. The Dark Lord is pressuring my father to have me join the Death Eaters early."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""What? You're only sixteen! Do you /spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"want/spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" to join them?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""It's not a question of wanting-"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""-but /spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"do/spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" you?"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Pause./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""No. Absolutely not."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Then refuse to join! Just say no!"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""You know it's not that simple..."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""But why /spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"can't/spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" it be that simple? Snape did it!"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Severus Snape is a Death Eater. Always has been. Once you're in with the Dark Lord, you can't get out."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""/spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"You/spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" can. I know you can! You're brave!"/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Why would you think that? I'm a coward. That's why I could never be in Gryffindor."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I don't believe that's true."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""That's nice of you to say..."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dean felt a sudden impulse to take Draco's hand. He did so, reaching his across the table and gently wrapping his fingers around Draco's pale white palm. Draco did not protest./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: bold; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Would you ever consider a romantic relationship with the person in front of you?/spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" the machine interrupted./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dean looked at Draco. "Maybe some day," he said, "if you don't become a Death Eater."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I may just take you up on that...some day."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: bold; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Is the person in front of you your friend?/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dean looked at Draco./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Draco looked at Dean./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Yes," they both said in unison./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; text-align: center; margin: 0pt -36pt 0pt -36pt;"strong style="font-weight: normal;" /strong/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Wednesday/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Draco had just finished his Herbology exam, and he was feeling pretty confident about it. He was walking back to the castle alongside Crabbe and Goyle, who were remarking that they hoped they'd gotten at least a 30%, when the three caught sight of Hermione Granger walking down the path in the opposite direction./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Filthy mudblood!" yelled Goyle./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -9pt; text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Stop it!" Draco told him. "She can't help being muggle-born."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; text-align: center; margin: 0pt -36pt 0pt -36pt;" /p 


End file.
